1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cable connector, and particularly to a cable plug connector for connecting with a PCMCIA I/O card.
2. The Prior Art
Referring to FIG. 1, to connect a computer 504 with a network 500 such as a telephone network, a PCMCIA I/O card 502 is inserted into a PCMCIA connector (not shown) mounted in the computer 504. The I/O card 502 has a 68-position connector (not shown) connected with the PCMCIA connector, and a 15-position connector (not shown) exposed to an exterior of the computer 504. A cable 506 with a first end provided with a plug connector 508 and a second end provided with a dungle 510 (usually including a receptacle RJ45/RJ11 modular jack (not shown)) connects the I/O card 502 with the network 500 by engaging the plug connector 508 with the 15-position connector of the I/O card 502 and the dungle 510 with a mating plug modular jack 512 of another cable 514 which has another plug modular jack 516 on the other end engaging with the network 500. To indicate the communication status between the computer 504 and the network 500, at least one LED 518 is provided on the dungle 510.
Such a prior art requires two cables 506, 514 to connect the computer 504 with the network 500. In addition, the dungle 510 must be relatively bulky in order to accommodate the receptacle RJ45/RJ11 and a printed circuit board (not shown) having the LED 518 mounted thereon.
To overcome the above mentioned disadvantages, an incorporation of two LEDs 520 into a cable plug connector 522 has been proposed, as seen in FIG. 2, in which a housing and some other parts of the connector 522 have been removed for clarity. The two LEDs 520 are soldered to wires 524 each having a predetermined length. The wires 524 are soldered to contacts 528 of the connector 522 whereby the LEDs 520 extend out of a rear side of the housing (not shown) of the connector 522. By such a design, the other end (not shown) of a cable 530 connecting with the plug connector 522 can be provided with a plug modular jack (not shown) to directly connect with a network without the necessity of an additional cable.
However, in such a prior art it is laborious to solder the LEDs 520 to the wires 524 and then solder the wires 524 to the contacts 528 of the connector 522. Additionally, since the LEDs 520 are located on a rear side of the connector 522, it is difficult to identify the communicating status indicated by the LEDs 520. Moreover, since the wires 524 are deformable, the distance that the LEDs 520 extend outside the housing of the connector 522 cannot be easily controlled, thus the indicating effectiveness achieved thereby is not always good. Finally, since the LEDs 520 extend outside the housing of the connector 522, the aesthetic integration of the connector 522 is unfavorably affected.
Hence, an improved cable plug connector for connecting with a PCMCIA I/O card is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of the current art.